The film is an intimate portrait of a group of American nuns, the Maryknoll Sisters, who have accompanied the disenfranchised around the world in their struggle for social justice. It weaves together the nuns’ own accounts of imprisonment and personal struggle with rare archival footage and poignant reminisces from the beneficiaries of their work. Since its completion in 2013, the film has been screened in New York City, Toronto and Vancouver, and has raised over US$180,000 for the Maryknoll Sisters.

Tong is renowned for making the seminal film on the Nanjing Massacre, In the Name of the Emperor, which won the Special Jury Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1995. She will be joined on a panel following the screening by Maureen Sabine,Honorary Professor in History at HKU, and author of Veiled Desires: Intimate Portrayals of Nuns in Postwar Anglo-American Film. Three Maryknoll sisters will also attend as special guests.

The screening and panel event, called “Nuns on Screen,” is being jointly sponsored by HKU’s
Journalism and Media Studies and the Women’s Studies Research Centre.

The screening runs from 5:30-6:45pm, followed by the panel from 7:00-8:00pm. All are welcome.

The Maryknoll Mission sisters, an order established in early 20th century America, have travelled to exotic locations and have often been at the centre of important geopolitical events. A documentary about the order, Trailblazers in […]